By Bode Olagoke
Abuja
Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Barrister James Ocholi, yesterday said there was no reliable statistic data on unemployed youths in the country.
He also said the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government Teacher Conversion Programme was to mop up graduates who don’t have employment but have degrees in relevant areas that “can be used to teach students in secondary schools.”
Ocholi, who spoke with newsmen in Abuja at the national secretariat the All Progressives Congress (APC), said “before we got to where we are, there was no data anywhere; there is no data of the unemployed. In fact there is no data of the employed; it is a bad situation.”
He, however, said the Ministry had started the process of gathering data of the unemployed and the employed Nigerians.
He said: “As l talk with you, there are experts working on the software on the various things which we have discussed with them on how to capture the details of the unemployed and the employed. And for those who are employed, there are many who are in wrong places; there many who are in job and they are not enjoying the job and who want to have a job better than what they are doing.
“There is a firm that we have sourced for, working with the National Directorate of Employment, NDE right now. NDE has done a pilot scheme in Bwari and they have an office in Lobito crescent right now working in preparatory for a mega scale on job proffer.”
